Question About Mental Delay in Adults?

Question by Jenna: Question about mental delay in adults?
If someone has the mind capacity of a ten year old, what can they do? What do they act like? And what are some causes for that happening?
Every time I try to look it up on my own a bunch of bills and acts pop up so I can’t find anything informative or useful.

Best answer:

Answer by Lynn
I copied and pasted what you wrote–“the mind capacity of a ten year old” and got this -http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4GGHP_enUS514US514&q=the+mind+capacity+of+a+ten+year+old

Answer by Teddy & Chiliswoman
First you are under the wrong impression that anyone who is an adult has only the the mind capacity of a ten year old. They have the mind of an adult. They are an adult. Often they are treated like 10 year old children so they have the interests and capabilities of only ten year olds. So if that is the case – treat them either like the adult they are, treat them like they child they are accustomed to being treated like, or help them grown intio an adult.

IQ tests have been used to label people for almost a century. They have pigeon holed people on the basis of how well they do on a test. Than they only give them opportunities that the test says they are capable of. And the test turns out to “true”, because that is all that is expected of them.

Children with intellectual disabilities take longer to learn things. So as adults they may not have learned all the life skills typical of a person their age. But if given the opportunity they continue to learn.

My son turns 30 in 9 days. When he was born he was labeled mentally retarded with Down syndrome and cocaine effect. I was told he would never walk, be potty trained, talk, go to school – do much of anything. I was adopting him and it was told to me he might be better off institutionalized.

At almost 30, my son takes care of his personal needs entirely himself except for cutting his toenails. He prepares his own meals, does his own laundry, cleans his house, lives alone, goes out with friends, swims, rides a bike, dances, and has his own business. He designs (with support) and makes silkscreen tshirts and buttons with disability and civil rights messages , which he sells as a micro-enterprise at conferences, festivals, and markets.

He is just beginning to learn how to read. He is just beginning to understand the concepts of addition and subtraction. He is just moving out of a concrete thinker stage into being able to think more abstractly.

I manage his bills, transportation and his medical care. He lives in a home I bought for him when he turned 21. He does pretty well on his own.

My son was tested throughout school as “trainably mentally impaired” with an IQ of 43. He attended regular classes through high school and than is typical of kids in Michigan went to a transitional program from 18-26. During that time he also went to college taking culinary arts classes. A year ago I had his IQ retested as part of a research project. It was tested at 33. That is by the former definition “profoundly mentally impaired” – he shouldn’t be able to do much more than drool.

My son could very well be like a person is typically thought of with an IQ of 33 if that had been what I expected of him, if that is how I treated him, if I considered him to have a mind with the capacity of a 3 year old.

So how do they act – like they were raised to act. What can they do – what they have been taught to do. My sons disability was cause by a chromosome anomaly (genetics) and his birth mother’s cocaine abuse (in-utero abuse). Intellectual disability, which is what it is properly called now, can be caused by many other factors including birth trauma, severe malnutrition, abuse, and educational neglect.

Added: SophieB you must live in a third world country – what you describe simply is not true in the US anymore. It was true 30 years ago.